Tell me a story
by quotegilikay
Summary: 'About you. When you were a child.' Sherlock's bored. Unsurprisingly.
1. Fairies and dragons

**A/N- **This is kind of to convince myself (and everyone else) that I can still write properly after all the rambling nonsensical drabblings I've been doing lately.

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'John.'

Sherlock's voice came lazily, unguarded, as if he was perfectly comfortable and enjoying the silence and easy contentment that came with just having finished a case. He was lying on the couch, one arm behind his head, staring up at the ceiling; John was sitting on his chair reading the newspaper.

'Mmm?' John replied absently, not looking up from the cartoons (Sherlock was under the impression he was reading the world news pages. John was fully aware of this, and had no intention of correcting Sherlock's assumptions).

'Tell me a story.'

John closed and folded up the paper, his attention caught. 'A story. Like a fairies-and-dragons-type story, or…?'

Sherlock chuckled, a deep low sound that shook his chest. 'No, one about you. When you were a child.'

John looked at Sherlock quizzically for a moment, his head tilted to the side. His flatmate gave no indication that he had noticed; just kept gazing upwards as if the answer to life the universe and everything was written on the ceiling and drummed his fingers on his stomach.

John cast his mind around, picked out a memory. His fingers found the scar that cut across his right arm, just above his elbow, and he smiled. 'Well...

'Once we went on holiday to France…'


	2. Parlez-vous Francais?

John Watson was four. His big sister, Harry, was five, and he idolised her. She was clever, and brave, she knew about the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, and she went to school. To John's four-year-old mind, his big sister was everything. He looked up to her, admired her, and would do anything for her.

So it was only natural that it was Harry's idea to sneak off together while they were on holiday.

On holiday. In Paris. For two weeks.

This was unusual, because the Watson's were hardly the richest family around. They were comfortable, and Harry and John never went hungry, but they weren't the sort of family who could afford a lavish holiday every year.

It had gotten worse when John's father had left, just before John's third birthday. John's mother had put on a brave, only-just-cracking-at-the-edges face for John's birthday, but the cracks got bigger during the next few months until she couldn't smile anymore. Then she'd decided they needed a holiday so they scrimped and saved for six months until they could afford two weeks in France.

John didn't really remember his father. His mother had told him that Daddy had gone away for a while and John had accepted that.

But then he'd never come back and John had asked his mother, but she had given him a tight-lipped smile and no answer, so John had gone back to playing with his favourite toy truck, his too-long blonde hair flopping in his eyes.

Harry had told him that they probably wouldn't see Daddy very much anymore, and because Harry was the cleverest person in the world and knew everything, John had nodded solemnly and believed her.

He had also believed her when she said _Mum won't mind_ and ran across the other side of the room and beckoned to him. They were in the Louvre, and there were paintings everywhere. John liked painting. He hoped maybe one day he could paint something to hang on one of these walls. Some of the paintings were good, but some of them didn't make sense.

Like the one they were standing in front of now.

John sighed, and scuffed his foot along the floor. He was bored. His mother had gotten distracted by a painting that looked to John like a pair of shoes made out of sea snakes and he didn't like it very much.

Maybe Harry was right. So John wriggled his hand out of the grasp of his mother, who didn't notice, and went to join his sister.

And then they ran. Around the art gallery, dodging between people and in and out of doorways, hiding in cupboards, being pirates and explorers and astronauts. They ran and they laughed and they imagined things, with the boundless energy of small children.

Once they bumped into a security guard, who was tall and burly and had a moustache, and he smiled and said something to them. But neither of them spoke French so John held tight to Harry's hand and they looked at each other, then Harry said _je ne parle pas français _just as their mother had told them and they ran off again.

Then they found a step in one of the rooms and took turns to jump off it to see who could jump the furthest. John slipped, and fell, and there was blood. Lots of blood. Coming from his arm, and it _hurt. _He sat up, gripped his right arm in his left hand, and howled.

Normally John was far more sensible than Harry but now it was Harry who decided that enough was enough, who decided that it was time to go back to their mother, who tried to persuade John to move. He stubbornly refused at first, but then she told him to be brave, and when that didn't work she threatened to pick him up and carry him. So then he got up, sniffing and holding his arm protectively, and limped (his leg wasn't really that sore, but he thought maybe he'd hurt it so he limped anyway) after her, and she put her arm around his shoulders in a friendly but very uncharacteristic gesture.

They eventually got back to the room they'd started from and found it swarming with security guards and some policemen. In the middle of it all was their mother, frantic with worry, wringing her hands together like she did when she was upset. She saw John and Harry and screamed, then saw the blood on John's shirt and screamed even louder. She rushed at them and swept them up together in a big hug so their heads knocked together and tears dripped into their hair. They protested and John's arm got blood on her shirt.

And she yelled and them and told them to _never run off again without telling me_, and John said he wouldn't because he didn't like it when his mother was angry, and he didn't like seeing her so upset. Harry said she wouldn't either.

But they did. Many times.

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**A/N- **The thing about the limp is not supposed to be a dig at John's psychosomatic limp. At all. I just thought it might be something that a four year old would do.


End file.
